Morocco Sees 15% Spike in COVID-19 Cases, Government to Address Surge

In two weeks, the epidemiological situation in Morocco has worsened, with a 15% increase in new cases, particularly in Casablanca, which is setting records with 70% of the cases recorded across the national territory.

The Head of Government, Saadeddine El Othmani, will present on Monday, April 12, to the two chambers of Parliament, the causes of this trend of new cases and the preventive actions that the government intends to implement to control the situation, reports the newspaper Al Ahdath Al Maghribia.

"The epidemiological situation in Morocco is worrying," said the coordinator of the National Center for Public Health Emergency Operations at the Ministry of Health, Mouad Mrabet, adding that for the past month and a half, the trend has been on the rise in terms of new cases, after a long period of decline observed since mid-November.

In the Casablanca-Settat region, 50 new cases are detected per 100,000 inhabitants, or 5 times the national average, the newspaper reports, indicating that according to Dr. Mouad Mrabet, Morocco is approaching a third wave of virus spread. For this spokesperson of the health authorities, the objective today is to control this increase in new cases at the regional level so that it does not spread to other regions where the trend is downward.

Seven regions are contaminated by the new English variant, the official continued, noting that 115 people have already tested positive for this new virus. This is why the Ministry of Health is urging Moroccans to continue to respect the barrier measures in order to limit the spread of the British variant, whose transmission is faster than other strains.